I’ve blogged about this on here before, but the figures from this latest study are utterly stark:

In 2015, 29.3% more 25-34-year-olds died in the north than the south.

For those aged 35-44 it was almost 50% higher than the south in 2015!

Overall, there were 1.2MILLION more early deaths for those under 75 in the North compared to the South over the last 50 years. That is 24000 people dying younger than needed every single year extra in the North.

Leading complex change in the NHS and social care system involves systems thinking and economic modelling, which is more like gardening than a traditional mechanistic approach. However, you can prune all you like and plant all kinds of new seeds, but if your soil is depleted of the resources that plants need to grow and flourish and if you’re living in an area of drought, then no matter how hard you try, your garden remains barren. This is our experience in the North and it has to change now! We can’t simply take the same approach as the south. The soil is different here, the land is barren and the environment is harsher.

What the North needs now is a clear admission, by central government, of the inequalities that exist and a fair redistribution of resources to tackle the health deficit we experience here. As gardeners, we are working our fingers to the bone. We are engaging in population health, redesigning our systems, ensuring that we are dealing with our waste appropriately and joining up our depleted partnerships to provide the best care we possibly can. But we need investment in our soil! We need water! We need to know that northern gardens matter as much as southern ones do. The wider determinants of health – poverty, housing, education, aspiration, adverse childhood experiences and isolation are themselves in need of investment. But we also need investment, not further austerity, in the health and social care systems that are trying to deal with the consequences of these issues. Yes, we need a people movement in the North (see previous blogs), but we need a fair allocation of resource also!

The evidence is clear. The challenge to the centre is this: what will be done differently to redress this imbalance? What will be done to allow the North to flourish in health and wellbeing?